Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/192

156 all who hear of it, it is tantamount to being sanctioned by reason itself. All clue humour to your opinions! But small unconventionalities are of greater value. —Were I a god, and a well-meaning one, the marriages of people would annoy me more than anything else. Very far indeed may an individual progress in the seventy, nay, thirty years of his life,—so far as to appear marvellous even to the gods. But when we see him hang up the inheritance and fruit of his struggles and victory, the laurel-wreath of his humanity on the very first pillar where a wife may pick it to pieces; when we see how much better he understands acquisition than preservation, nay, how little he is aware that by procreationhie might bring forth an even more victorious life: we, indeed, grow impatient, saying to ourselves, "Nothing in the long run will come of humanity, the individuals are wasted, the accidentality of marriage makes every reasonable and great course of humanity impossible:—let us cease being cager spectators and fools of this play without a purpose ! In this mood once, long ago, the gods of Epicurus withdrew to their heavenly seclusion and bliss: they were weary of men and men's love affairs." —While in love we ought not to be permitted to decide about our own lives, or to